Here is Mr Long talking about writing the score in an interview from November 2013 on RNZ. It’s 20 minutes and goes into the writing, the filmmaking process as well as bits from the Everest story, which is chock full of drama and general mountain climbing craziness.

“The first thing [producer] Matthew [Metcalfe] said to me was: ‘If you think of Everest and Ed Hillary, there’s an obvious score, isn’t there. There’s an obvious sort of soundtrack.’ I went yeah. He said: ‘Don’t do it’.”

I got my copy of the soundtrack from Slow Boat Records in Wellington, but I see it is also available at Victoria University Press.

“A Beekeeper from Tuakau” and “Summiting” are my favourite tracks. A nice mix of delicacy and strength. They almost, but don’t quite, convince me to take on a razor-sharp, icy peak surrounded by bottomless crevasses.